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Articles A
Commentary: "Water or Wine?" It's official. It is open season on the north coast forests. The California Department of Forestry (CDF) has just approved two of the many pending forestland to vineyard conversions in the Annapolis area. Clear cutting is presently taking place on many acres of conversions spearheaded by vineyard entrepreneurs. They hope to profit by permanently scraping an ancient forest ecosystem off coastal hills and planting the bare ground with wine grapes. The CDF approvals of the "Putnam" and "Jones" conversions in Annapolis represent the opening door on a far reaching, serious threat to maintaining water quality, water quantity and biodiversity in north coast watersheds. The deforestation in these plans being approved and those pending is being done without any thorough study of the cumulative effects from all of the existing, pending, and potential future conversions. These planned coastal vineyards are in water scarce areas and utilize large lined reservoirs that prevent natural runoff from entering streams and the river. Evidence is mounting that a neighboring river to the north, the Navarro, is experiencing greatly reduced summer flow due to the extensive vineyard development in Anderson Valley. The
complex forest ecosystem acts as a sponge that absorbs winter
rainfall and releases it slowly over the year to maintain fish,
riparian habitat and clean safe water for users such as The
Sea Ranch and the town of Gualala. It would seem prudent for
these two water companies to be concerned enough about future
water availability to join in a call to study this new threat.
If conversions continue they might "solve" one of
the other threats to the Gualala River watershed: the proposed
water-bagging scheme will become a moot point if enough water
does not reach the estuary and the existing wells along the
river. In addition, a long list of pesticides is regularly used
in commercial vineyards. No study exists looking into the effects
of this potential chemical cocktail on salmonids and other downstream
fauna and users. Concern
about these conversions and/or calls for a moratorium and study
should be directed to: Letters
should also be cc'd to the Sonoma County Permit and Resource
Management Department which is updating the General Plan with
its control of permitted land uses through zoning.
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